Thursday, 3 February 2011

Essay Research Post

I have decide to write my essay about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) because arguably it is technically Edgar Wright’s best movie so far (although my personal favorite is Hot Fuzz, just saying), it also makes sense to look at his other movies retrospectively.

“The critically-acclaimed source text is matched to a director whose creative vision, aesthetic and cultural tastes mirror the original author's so completely you find yourself wondering if they are, in fact, the same person.”

“Visually, Pilgrim is an astonishing blend of three distinct styles. The world of the film is filtered through Scott's video-game-loving mind”

“The manga-inspired feel of Bryan Lee O'Malley's comic is transposed onto the screen in the form of the giant sound effects and movement lines that litter the action”

“The whole thing is shot through with the quick-cuts and inventive framing that Wright's been doing since 'Spaced'.”

"The fact that the film gets away with foregoing any sort of traditional three-act structure is a testament to the assured, exhilarating style that's long-since become Wright's trademark.”

“Each is an inspired musical-style set-piece with its own inventive and unexpected resolution.” (Referring to the fight scenes)

[Seb Patrick, 2010]

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Q&A Notes

Notes form a fascinating movie discussion/ Q&A about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World with the director Edgar Wright, Bryan Lee O’Malley the writer of the graphic novels, lead actor Michael Cera and master director Guillermo Del Toro moderating.

“I think that one thing that is most puzzling is how people confuse effortlessness with ease. One of the hardest things to simulate and craft is something breezy, alive and effortless.”

“One of the things that Edgar did that absolutely destroyed me was transitions, the transitions are incredibly effortless, fluid, smart and where completely appropriate to the movie. He’s not doing it as a show of, but as part of the reason and narrative behind the story.”

“There’s a very deliberate use of saturated colours as the story advances, and for good reason.”

“There is a way of reading it, were it could all be happening in Scott’s mind.”

“There are few movies that so clearly evoke what it is to be young. It is a blessing when you find a piece like this that really reminds you of the complex simplicity of being young. Your problems are few but they run very deep, I think the movie evokes that perfectly.”

[Del Toro, 2010]

“I always wanted to walk this line between fantasy and reality. At the parts were they bust into battle his friends start acting differently, it becomes his version of everyone.”

[Lee O’Malley, 2010]

“Bryan’s note about Scott as a character is that Scott is the hero of a movie inside his own head. In the last book a flashback is revealed to be completely different, Scott is an unreliable narrator. Once I had that information it was a really great way of how to imagine the movie, which is that the movie is playing inside Scott’s head.”

“Bryan’s sense of composition is great he is forcing your eye and telling a story with the negative space. In the movie I tried to give the feeling of reading I saw the transitions as like turning the page. You could see the movie as reading the books as if you are a very fast reader. I also tried to match the artwork not just in terms of composition but to try and do a different shot every edit.”

The angles for each panel in the book changes giving a sense of rhythm. Edgar wanted to do this to create the same sense of rhythm and to keep the movies energy up.

[Wright, 2010]

The reality of the movie would be a Clerks (1994, Kevin Smith) style indie movie with no crazy fight scenes. But Scott has reinterpreted it inside his own head.